


Eremophobia

by PunishedPyotr



Series: Only Ones and Zeros [8]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Jealousy, Liquid literally fights himself, M/M, Mantis disapproves, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Traditional Media, and also the Liquid Snake AI, bonus illustration, reupload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: Am I really this annoying?Eli wonders, looking Liquid up and down like it’s the first time he’s really seen him.





	1. Chapter 1

Mantis is busy today. Supposedly something’s been going on, but Mantis doesn’t have all the details, or at least he doesn’t want to share all the details with Eli just yet. Eli doesn’t mind. He’s slowly figuring out how to affect the very programming of the world he lives in now, and he can keep himself occupied that way. He’ll never have the same ‘reality’-warping powers Mantis has, of course, but he knows how to edit the situation parameters for the hostile AIs, and he knows how to view other nearby files in the network if only he can figure out a way around the cybersecurity measures that are convinced he’s a virus, and…

He knows that a few weeks ago, when Mantis had to re-copy the original Liquid Snake AI so he could fix Eli’s code after he nearly got himself killed, when he was done he didn’t  _delete_  it. He just deactivated it. It’s still technically  _here_.

And Mantis isn’t around to stop Eli from  _re_ -activating it.

So when the Liquid AI materializes in the commander’s room once again and sets eyes on the real Eli, he immediately frowns and takes about five steps back.

“Remember me?” Eli says nastily.

“Of course I do,” Liquid says, wary, “you’re the one who sucked on Mantis’ fingers and moaned like a whore — God knows why he  _allowed_  it for as long as he did…”

In retrospect, Eli realizes, that had been a really stupid, embarrassing thing to do. In his defense, though, he was effectively sick and not thinking clearly at the time. Not that he no longer finds the other AI to be some kind of a  _threat_  now that he  _is_  thinking clearly…

“Mantis makes a lot of allowances for me. But of course  _you_  don’t know that.”

“I’m sorry, who are you??”

“Do you honestly not recognize me?”

Liquid folds his arms and stares at him blankly for a second. “You  _look_  like me,” he says, “and mostly act like me-“

“Mostly…?  _Like you?_  I’m the original!!”

“—but you’re not… no, you can’t be me, that’s just…”

Eli scoffs. “That’s because I’m  _not you_ , you’re a  _copy_  of  _me_. A rudimentary one, at that.”

“I don’t…” He seems confused. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m the person your whole personality was modeled off of!”

There’s a long pause.

“I don’t understand,” Liquid says again.

Eli throws his hands up, walking in a short circle before standing in front of Liquid again. “You just can’t parse this, can you?” he says, “it’s literally impossible for you to acknowledge my identity because you weren’t programmed to have a ‘duplicate’ running around.”

“There’s only one me,” Liquid says testily.

“Mantis said this sort of thing might cause glitching… shame it couldn’t be the entertaining sort.” He frowns. “Now that I think about it, I’m surprised Mantis let me talk to you a few weeks ago.”

“’Let’?” Liquid says. “You mean Mantis orders you around? You’re subordinate to him?” He sound simultaneously scornful and genuinely curious.

Eli flushes angrily. “ _I’m_  the boss around here, thank you.”

“ _You_  are?” Liquid says, raising an eyebrow. “Last I checked  _I_  was in charge here, and  _you_  were just some uppity anonymous program with a very  _interesting_  self-identification.”

“Uppity?! Look who’s talking!” Eli sweeps an arm. “You’re just a computer — I’m a  _man_ , the exact one you’re  _pretending_  to be!!”

“You’re a program. You are definitely a program, I can tell the difference between programs and-“

“You thought  _Mantis_  was a program, and he didn’t even take over his own AI framework the way I did.”

Liquid rubs the back of his neck, narrowing his eyes at Eli. “Yes, well,” he says, “he’s not exactly a user, either. I see any users as Solid Snake, without exception.”

“That sounds terrible. I almost feel sorry for you.”

“Almost,” Liquid says.

“Yes, almost. You were designed for an even more limited purpose than I was.” He rolls his eyes, then gives Liquid a haughty glance. “Your raison d'être was just to be killed over and over by some gullible idiot they were trying to shape into my brother - and as soon as they were done with you, they just sunk you into the indefinite equivalent of a coma, didn’t they?”

“What does it matter?” Liquid says, his voice cold. His eyes are flat and blank, though, so his aggression seems insincere.

“You should be grateful to me for re-activating you instead of deleting you, and you should be grateful to Mantis for copying you from the original AI.” Eli blinks. He’s just realized something. “If you’re a copy of the original AI… the copy that I eventually took over was also a copy of that, wasn’t he…?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This AI framework I’m using as a body — before my consciousness came to inhabit it, it was just like you, a copy of the AI used in Raiden’s VR training.”

“Raiden…? You mean Snake?”

“What?”

“I  _was_  used in his VR training. I have all the records detailing it, I remember every run perfectly.”

Eli frowns. “So you’re the same?”

“Same as what? The AI Snake faced? That  _was_  me.”

“No, wouldn’t there- wouldn’t there be two of you now, technically? You, here, and the original one, in the part of the network Mantis copied you from?”

“I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking. If we’ve got the same coding, we’re really the same program, aren’t we?”

Eli crosses his arm, glaring at him, feeling defensive all of a sudden. “Hold it, don’t put yourself in the same category as me. What my code looks like doesn’t matter, I’m-“

“Well of course _you_  would have different records - memories - from  _me_ ,” Liquid says, cocking his head arrogantly, “but if the ‘body’ you inhabit now was copied from me to begin with, that means…”

“…the AI that Mantis was hanging out with  _was_  you,” Eli finishes his sentence, then stomps his foot, growling. “Dammit! Not him again…”

“Problem?”

“I should have known there was a reason Mantis didn’t delete you! He said he didn’t miss the AI me at all, but- oh, I  _knew_  he was just placating me…”

“So he was spending time with me,” Liquid says, “and then you just showed up and supplanted me? And now I’m back…”

Eli runs a hand through his hair, then shakes his head. This is getting confusing. “It wasn’t properly  _you_ ,” he says heatedly, “you were still doing the VR training. You don’t have any records of what Mantis did with _that_ copy of me… do you?”

“No,” Liquid says with a frown.

“Then it wasn’t  _you_ ,” Eli says triumphantly, then immediately gets annoyed again, his mood dropping. “But he said when he initially started working with the AI - filling in the blank spots in ‘your’ past — he said that that was the AI in the original simulation, and he didn’t make this backup Shadow Moses until after he got reset.”

“Reset?” Liquid says. “I was reset a couple years ago. I believe the reason given was unexplained erratic behavior.”

“…oh god, so you really  _are_  the Liquid Snake AI Mantis was shaping into me.” He starts pacing. “But, as long as you don’t remember it… it should be fine, shouldn’t it…?”

“ _What_  are you so concerned about?” Liquid sneers.

Eli strides forward and grabs Liquid by the collar of his coat, yanking him towards him. “The Patriots might have  _conveniently_  decided that everything in my life that  _brought_  me to Shadow Moses wasn’t actually  _relevant_  to the revolution, but—“

“Just because I don’t have any records of half my past doesn’t mean that I act any differently in the simulation than the real-life Liquid Snake did during the incident.”

“I  _am_  the real-life Liquid Snake!” Eli snaps, “and just because you  _act_  the way I did doesn’t mean you come even  _close_  to being me. You don’t understand why I did any of what I did!”

“I beg to differ. It’s part of my directive to analyze ‘your’-“ he puts it in air-quotes, “-personality. I should say I understand Liquid Snake better than he understood himself.”

Eli shoves him away. Much to his disappointment, Liquid keeps his balance perfectly well and doesn’t even blink. “When someone’s going through the simulation and you have to act out that whole mess over and over,” he growls, “how do you feel?”

“Eh?”

“How do you  _feel?_  Do you ever feel frustrated, being thwarted and betrayed and killed, again and again?”

“I- well, I don’t… my emotional simulation programming doesn’t really— hang on,  _betrayed?_  Who betrayed me?”

Eli laughs in disbelief.

“What now?!”

“You don’t know anything!! You really, really don’t!” He keeps laughing. “ _God_ , they just didn’t care, did they? As long as you go through the motions…!”

“What are you on about?!”

Eli shoves him again, pushing him back towards the desk. “Don’t you dare for a  _second_  think you’re  _me_ ,” he hisses, “you’re just an unfeeling, hollow shell — it doesn’t matter that you don’t have my  _issues_  and  _dysfunctions_ , you’re  _not real_  and you’re  _not_  better than me.”

“Who said I was better than you??”

“What…? Oh, they got  _that_  in there, did they?” He frowns, letting Liquid go. “Even this nice, docile ‘other me’ they still had to go and give an inferiority complex to…”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Do you?”

They glare at each other for a moment.

_Am I really this annoying?_  Eli wonders, looking Liquid up and down like it’s the first time he’s really seen him. Damn, he really does have a flat butt…

“Well, whoever you are,” Liquid starts, and Eli growls at him again.

“Let’s get something very clear,” he says.

“Clear?” Liquid says, “I think  _I_  have a few things to explain to  _you_.” He gestures around them. “This island…”

“-is  _mine_ ,” Eli barks.

“I took it over fair and square!” Liquid snaps, “not that there’s much to say about being in charge of an empty pile of rock…”

“Miss your unit, commander?” Eli says spitefully.

“Mantis is still here.”

Eli loses it. He screams, tackling Liquid, sending them both sliding across the desk, scattering papers everywhere, and crashing to the floor behind it, the chair getting knocked over - one of its legs hits Eli in the face, but he doesn’t care because he’s too busy wrestling with a hissing, spitting Liquid.

“He’s  _mine!_  He’s mine, goddammit, and you can’t have him!!”

“Jesus  _Christ_ , how does he tolerate this?! How has he not killed you already!?”

“Ha!! You’d know if you knew  _anything_  about who you’re  _supposed_  to be!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Unsurprisingly, they’re completely evenly matched. Eli pins Liquid to the floor by the throat, but Liquid kicks him off of him and reverses their positions in an instant, and then Eli does the same, slamming the back of his head against the floor, and it doesn’t take long for them to have rolled out into the middle of the room with all their struggling.

“I’m sure he explained it all to you before you got reset!” Eli shouts.

“I wouldn’t remember that, would I?” Liquid snarls back, “what kind of relationship I had with Mantis—“

“You don’t  _know_  what kind of relationship you had with Mantis, no one ever put it on paper!”

“—was there really anything between us? Is this why you think I have bloody  _designs_  on him or something?!”

“You— I’m not about to let you—-“

One of them accidentally kicks one of the pedestals near the wall, and it topples over, the bust shattering right next to Eli’s head. Eli thinks quickly, forcing his foot against Liquid’s stomach and pulling his arms by the wrists, levering him up, throwing him into the sharp debris and grinning at all the blood.

No matter what kind of emotions are currently wrecking havoc in his mind, he has to admit that this is  _fun_.

Liquid scrambles to his feet quickly, and Eli’s still on the ground so he goes for his ankles, but Liquid just kicks him in the face, shoving him into the ceramic shards and slicing him up, too. Eli grabs his foot nonetheless, twisting sharply - there’s a satisfying  _snap_  - and sending Liquid to the floor again.

“You can’t win, you know,” Liquid spits.

“Neither can you,” Eli crows back, “we’re exactly the same.”

There’s a split second of silence as they both have the exact same dawning realization.

“ _I’m_  the superior one!” they both yell at the same time.

They start fighting again. They’re both already bleeding, and Liquid manages to break Eli’s wrist in payback for his ankle, but neither of them are entirely registering their wounds or broken bones. They’re just trying to kill each other, and that’s all that matters.

Liquid’s got Eli in a chokehold when they’re interrupted by a loud “A _hem_ ” at the doorway of the room. They both freeze, and look up.

Mantis is standing there, arms folded, surveying the mess the two Liquid Snakes have made of the room and of each other, with an  _extremely_ unamused expression.

Eli breaks the stillness first, wriggling out from under Liquid and vaulting himself across the room, and lies at Mantis’ feet with his arms around his legs, glaring smugly at Liquid. Liquid just looks confused and affronted.

“I hope you have a good explanation for this, Eli,” Mantis says dryly.

“We were having a discussion on the nature of self,” Eli replies, staring up at him innocently.

“This man is a  _freak_ ,” Liquid says, “for the love of  _God_ , Mantis,  _get rid of him_.”

Mantis puts his hands over the lenses of his gas mask and sighs deeply. “You re-activated the AI just to pick a fight with him…?”

“You’re the one who didn’t delete him,” Eli grumbles.

Mantis shakes Eli off his foot, and Eli winces - now that the battle’s effectively over, he’s starting to notice that he is, in fact, injured. Judging by Liquid’s expression, he’s realizing the same thing right now.

“Such petty jealousy over a computer program,” Mantis says.

“He’s just insecure,” Liquid says nastily.

“Shut up,” Eli growls at him.

“I suppose you would know,” Mantis says.

Without another word, Liquid disappears, leaving Mantis and a slightly worse-for-wear Eli alone in the wrecked commander’s room - which resets to its usual appearance as Mantis crouches next to Eli, still looking supremely unimpressed.

“More fun than the Gurlukovich soldiers or Gray Fox, hmm?” he says.

“Well… there was just something oddly satisfying about punching myself in the face.”

“Your self-loathing knows no bounds. Sit still.”

Eli gasps as Mantis resets his injury variables, then whines as Mantis withdraws from his code after that.

“You’ve been misbehaving,” Mantis scolds. “I am not going to  _reward_  you for doing something so ridiculous.”

“Again:  _you’re_  the one who didn’t just delete him when you were done with him,” Eli says petulantly, standing up. “Why didn’t you? You had to know I’d figure out he was still here.” He narrows his eyes. “You only deactivated him this time, too, didn’t you?”

Mantis sighs. “Eli, I just… cannot bring myself to delete him.”

Eli seethes to himself, stalking out of the room. Mantis drifts behind.

“It’s only sentimentality, Eli, not any genuine affection for him. He is not you. I know that.”

Eli grunts.

“There is no reason for you to be jealous.”

Eli stops mid-hallway, spins on his heel, and grabs Mantis, pushing his mask up and kissing his mouth roughly.

“Damn right there isn’t,” he growls against his lips. “ _I’m_  yours, not him. You love  _me_ , not  _him_.”

“Eli…”

After a moment he lets go of Mantis and steps back, not quite meeting his eyes all of a sudden. “…sorry, Mantis. I know I’m being a… a bit selfish about this.”

Mantis shakes his head, fixing his mask. “It is like he said — you are only feeling insecure and lashing out.” He pats Eli’s cheek. “But there’s no reason for it. If only I could convince you of that…”

“Hn.”

There’s a long pause and Mantis sighs again, and takes Eli’s hand and starts leading him over to a break room. “Come, Eli,” he says softly, “they won’t call me back for a few hours at least. Let’s make the most of it.”


	2. EXTRA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. This was drawn in a small notebook. During my lunchbreak. I still felt the need to post it here :^)

**Author's Note:**

> (any and all comments will be forewarded to aireyv! i will either copy/paste their reply to me or they will reply on their own account! have a nice day!!! if you have any questions, just ask!!!!)


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